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As I thought more about the massive furor over the issue of grace (or what some people are calling hyper-grace), I began to wonder why some people are so resistant to the idea. Of course control is a major issue, which I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Dis-graceful Conduct. But as I thought about it more, I began to wonder why some people—good people, godly people, including friends of mine—were so rabidly and viciously coming out against the idea of the full grace of God. I asked myself why they couldn’t accept God’s generosity.

That’s when it dawned on me: they have trouble accepting God’s generosity because true generosity is so very rare these days. They don’t trust generosity in their fellow humans because it rarely comes without a price-tag of some sort. So along comes God into their lives, and His generosity is so immense that they simply cannot bring themselves to believe it.

Think about it: God offers us eternal life with Him in Heaven, a place that is so wonderful and beautiful that it defies description (1 Corinthians 2:9). And all we have to do is to repent and believe.

But the sweet by-and-by is not all that we get. We also get real and practical help throughout our life here on earth (Matthew 7:7-8). And all we have to do is to ask, believing.

But that’s not all we get. Every day as we live in the continual outpouring of God’s love, we become more and more like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). And all we have to do is follow Him, believing.

And that’s not all we get. The Holy Spirit gives us gifts for ministering to our fellow humans so that we can live together in harmony as the Body of Christ here on earth (1 Corinthians 12 & 13). And all we have to do is follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, believing.

But that’s still not all we get. Someday—and it’s going to be soon!—Jesus will come rapture away His church to escape the Tribulation and instead enjoy a 7 year wedding feast: ours to Jesus! (Matthew 25:1-13 & Revelation 21). And all we have to do is keep doing the work He has given us to do, believing.

So it’s not all a control issue. Plus, I think that it’s not only a matter of looking for the hidden price-tag on God’s Generous Grace. As I dug a little deeper, I realized that some people have trouble accepting even a compliment from a friend. Compliments don’t often come with a price-tag, so why would people have trouble accepting compliments? Because they don’t feel like they deserve it. Likewise, they have trouble with the full generosity of God’s Grace because they know that they don’t deserve it. Of course they don’t! None of us do! The definition of grace is unmerited favor. When we are born-again, we are given what we don’t deserve because Jesus took the punishment that He didn’t deserve. And all in the name of Love.

Grace is powerful. It can transform lives by the power of love. His love for us transforms us from strangers into daughters and sons of the Most High God. And our love for Him transforms us into victorious overcomers as we live to please our Generous God.

Grace is generous—mind-blowingly generous. Man’s generosity comes with a price-tag. God’s generosity also comes with a price-tag: come and die. But then He promises that if we lose our life for Him, we gain it (Matthew 10:39; John 12:25), so that in the end, the cost of enjoying God’s generosity has been paid for us, and all we have to do is live it out, believing. Trust God! Why? Because God is good!

Here in Bulgaria if someone doesn’t pay their gas bill, the gas company will shut off the gas to the whole building—something they could never get away with in either Italy or the US (or most civilized places). They are counting on the neighbors to put pressure on the offender to pay his bill, and it seems to work pretty quickly. Buck and Nadia don’t suffer much since their apartment is well-insulated, their stove is electric, and there is a backup boiler for heating water.

This method harks back to Communist times, when the government would punish whole blocks or even whole communities where a dissident lived by shutting off the heat. This was easy for them to do because whole communities were heated from gigantic boilers that looked a lot like nuclear reactor cooling towers. The heat was shut off for a whole town like shutting off a faucet.

And speaking of dissidents, I heard about another pastor who had suffered severe persecution under the Communists. There were no details given, and that is either because the family didn’t know the details or because the details are so unpleasant that they didn’t want to speak about it over a meal. After reading “Tortured for Christ” by Richard Wurmbrand, either one is possible.

Some churches seek to keep their people in line by peer pressure, and by preaching about being ever on guard against sin. It’s a very common topic in Italian churches. But a legalistic approach like this is the opposite of grace.

Lately grace has been on my mind. Pastor Fabio preached two weeks ago that when Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished,” He meant that all the curses of original sin and all the works of the devil have been undone and paid for. All our sin, all our sicknesses, and death—all of it has been undone and paid for by Jesus’ blood. No peer pressure is needed to keep us in line. I John 3:6 says: “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” And John wasn’t saying that we would never sin because he also wrote: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One,” I John 2:1. The difference is an occasional sin versus a lifestyle of habitual sinful behavior. Grace covers the first one, while the second neither knows or appreciates grace.

No church and no pastor anywhere will have a congregation of perfect people who never sin. And we need to be aware that not everybody who comes to church—not even every active member—is really and truly born again. That’s what the parable of the wheat and weeds was about (Matthew 13:24-30). Some people love church, love the music, love the activities, but just don’t really love Jesus. No amount of peer pressure will ever change them, either. The only thing that truly changes lives is love. Love triumphs over all, and that is the story of grace. God is good!

This is a great book, and very readable, on a theme that I’ve heard few churches preach about—and if you know me, you know that I get around to a lot of churches. The author says that there are two kinds of holiness: the kind we received at our conversion—the holiness of Jesus in place of our sinfulness; and the holiness we must work to grow within ourselves. The book is mostly about developing that second kind of holiness.

Something I’ve noticed among Christians (both in Europe and in the US) is a tendency to fall into a pattern of going to church, doing a few good works, and then spending time in useless, sometimes godless activity—and I’m not excluding myself. We tend to think that because we know God that our part is done. That’s what is so hard about this life is that once you understand why grace is so much better than the law, of course you choose grace. Nobody can possibly live up to the standards of the law, but we’re set free from the law by the grace of Jesus Christ who perfectly fulfilled the law and then died in our place—God’s unmerited favor. So when we accept grace, the danger is that of not “working out our salvation with fear and trembling,” (Philippians 2:12). Most of us don’t like to think of fearing the Lord, but reading on, Paul continues: “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose,” (verse 13).

We aren’t here to get rich, to work, or to enjoy the good life on Easy Street. We aren’t here to raise our children to be doctors, lawyers, star athletes, or star musicians. We aren’t here to go to church, go to cell groups, go to Bible study, etc. None of those things are bad things, but they are not what we are here for. We are expected to bear fruit, and if we are living connected to the vine (Jesus), our lives and activities will bear fruit.

I’ve noticed a lot of people recently who are being tested in the area of finances. Money is one of the hardest issues for most of us, and these people have found their faith severely tested when they lose their job, or experience some other kind of financial loss. When these things happen, some turn to their own resources: inside information, friends in the personnel department, their savings account. Really, the only thing to do is to go to God, and to trust Him for provision. I know because I was one of those people who was tested when my income for 2011 was cut in half: http://europeanfaithmissions.com/2012/06/17/god-meets-radical-faith-with-radical-provision/.

One of the other people who was tested is a friend from church here in Milan. She has been out of work for about a year now, but she said that somehow, there is always money when the bills come due. Her faith has grown as a result of this test. She told me yesterday that about a month ago the pastor started a series of sermons on seeking holiness. I said, “That’s interesting,” and told her about being led to exit the freeway in Dallas to pick up this book on holiness.

As you know by now, I don’t believe in coincidence or serendipity. I believe that God’s word to His people right now is: “But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy,” (1 Peter 1:15-17, referencing Leviticus 11:45). So, strive for holiness. God is good!